New Website at Testing Stage - Comments Welcome

[alchresearch]

It's nicely presented but a bit too much Flash for my liking. I always think Flash seems to be a substitute for content.

 

I guess your 'rival' would be j31.co.uk - although the layout is very basic there I feel there's loads more information.

[KivWaHistory]

Thanks for all the positive and constructive comments.

 

Alcresearch - I don't know how much you've examined the site but I think the 'lack of content' comment is a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction and, to be frank, wrong.

 

There are extracts from 40 hours of interviews, and more to follow; 1000+ photographs, and more to follow; nine books, and more to follow; about twelve video documentaries; about a dozen museum galleries - many with subsections; a people's musum, a digital archive, and much more.

 

Similarly, there is no element of competition at all with other websites - as you'll see from the links section, I like Paul's work on J31 a great deal and there is no way he is a 'rival' of any kind. Having said that, I'd like to see you try and substantiate your claim that there is loads more information on his site about Kiveton and Wales.

 

I wish you'd actually examine our site before making such unsubstantiated comments about 'lack of content'.

[alchresearch]

Did I say your site was lacking content? No, I said "I always think Flash seems to be a substitute for content".

 

Perhaps you should read my comments before making such knee-jerk reactions.

 

My biggest gripe of your site was clicking something and then waiting for it to load with the irritating circular progress indication.

 

But what do I know, I was only a full time professional web developer for four years....

[KivWaHistory]

And I've been a historian for much longer, hence irritation at what I and many others, including the volunteers who have put so much into the site, took to be a suggestion that the site is lacking in genuine historical content.

 

The flash and dial-up issues were things that we discussed at length with many people from a variety of sectors, including representives of various relevant national organisations, undertook extensive consultation over with the target audience, spoke to many developers about and came to a decision based on a variety of factors, including future accessibility and engagement issues. I think it is an important question to address, hence why we spent so long looking in to it and took so much professional advice - but perhaps that's for a discussion for the IT/tech board at a different time.

[hlt105]

The site looks great - I'm a school teacher and there seems to be loads there that could be used with my classes.

Well done KivWaHistory!

[wolfstalin]

KivWaHistory. I'm not sure why you asked for comments if as soon as someone gives one you get all defensive, surely the idea is to better serve your users by listening to constructive criticism as posted by alchresearch and amending the programing mismatches in your sites construction.

 

I didn't think that you enq here was to chest beat about content, no one has criticized you on this count but what you need to understand when setting up a website is that although this stuff seems like magic you still have to obey the laws of physics and you can't get a quart into a pint pot.

 

Even though you have asked for people to comment its still your choice as to what you want to do, but its simply not called for the attack someone who is merely trying to help you and at your request in the first place no less.

 

On my part I was waiting for you to ask what the suggestion might be to speed the site up and I was prepared to loan you one of our programmers to help you along or even let you use one of our servers, needless to say that won't be happening now.

[coyleys]

Thanks for the comments.

 

If you're getting the banner but nothing else then I'm guessing this will be one of our browser hiccups rather than the loading time - what browser and version are you using?

 

I live in a village and get just over half a Meg connection, but mine loads up in a matter of seconds, so I think it may be a browser problem.

Not had time to go through it in depth but initially I’m impressed.

An excellent site, keep up the good work.

[KivWaHistory]

Thanks for the continuing comments - hopefully Firefox should now work fine (would be great if others could check). Cheers Coyleys, it's good to know that it is also loading faster on slower connections.

 

Wolfstalin - Your comments were more than welcome as were the points made by Alcreresearch. There are important discussions to be had about accessibility and engagement, particularly for this type of site. There was no hint in your post that you had contributions to make about speeding things up else I would have certainly contacted you before now.

 

The issue with Alcresearch's original post was that, whether it was intended it or not, it read as an accusation that we had substituted appearance/form/spin/flash for content - this wasn't just my take on it, I checked with several others that they understood it in the same way before I replied. To defend the efforts of those who have contributed by emphasising the extent of the content is not chest-beating.

[wolfstalin]

I don't think I've ever been known to rush in making offers, I always take things step by step and see what I'm getting into, which basically means that I don't just throw money away.

 

Fact is I have one site programmer just tidying up at the moment and won't have anything for him until the new year and rather than pay him to play games all day I thought I might get some use out of him, but no, I don't jump without looking.

 

Remember its my perception that the guy was just trying to help and I think you ****** him off which is a shame, try the olive branch it works wonders.

 

Ahh, they do have restrictions here then, delete delete, LOL.

[KivWaHistory]

Ok, point taken and cheers for the PM exchange!

 

Apologies to Alcre if, indeed, he wasn't making a unsubstantiated comment about lack of content in his original post.

 

I'd also like to say thanks to everyone who has emailed and PMed about the site. Yet again, SFers have risen to the challenge - lots of small glitches spotted and our volunteers are chuffed to bits with all the positive feedback.